Jos Brilliant

After a decidedly sluggish start to the season, England’s Jos Buttler lit up Lord’s on May 31st with a scintillating 61-ball hundred to set the pace for this year’s Walter Lawrence Trophy.

In the 4th One-Day International against Sri Lanka, coming in at number seven with England looking dead and buried chasing a total of 301, Buttler took his side to the brink of an astonishing victory only to fall in the last over seven runs adrift. The 23-year-old right-hander hit 9 fours and 4 sixes in his hundred, before perishing on 121, his maiden One-Day International century. Buttler’s 61-ball hundred is the fastest by an England player in ODIs, eclipsing the 69-ball record by Kevin Pietersen.

It had taken until the final day of May for Kumar Sangakkara to post the first hundred of the season in fewer than 100 balls, when the Sri Lankan veteran completed a 95-baller earlier in the match. However, Buttler’s knock soon overshadowed his fellow wicket-keeper/batsman’s effort, earning him the Player of the Match award.

Now in its 80th year, the Walter Lawrence Trophy, awarded for the fastest hundred of the season, is open to all domestic county competitions as well as One-Day Internationals, Twenty20 Internationals and Test Matches in England.

England v Sri Lanka scorecard

Jos Buttler’s career statistics

Great Breton

Leading the way in the hunt for this year’s Walter Lawrence MCC Universities award is Tim le Breton of Loughborough MCCU. Le Breton, batting at no. 9, hit a remarkable, unbeaten 112 against Oxford MCCU at The Haslegrave Ground, Loughborough on April 16. The 20-year-old Blackburn-born right-hander’s innings included 15 fours and 3 sixes off 137 balls in the 2-day drawn game.

The quartet of Walter Lawrence Trophy awards, supported by Veuve Clicquot, encompass four distinct areas of the game: the Walter Lawrence Trophy, for the fastest century of the season; the MCC Universities award for the highest score by a batsman from the six MCC Universities against the first-class counties or in the MCCU Championship; The Walter Lawrence Women’s Award for the batsman who makes the highest individual score in a season from the ECB Women’s County Championship, the ECB Women’s County T20 Cup and all England Women’s matches played on home soil, and, finally, the Walter Lawrence Schools Award for the highest score by a school batsman against MCC.